Opening Day Abomination

I'm officially an old fogy, at least where baseball is concerned. As spring training games began a few weeks ago, I'd hear the occasional mention of Opening Day coming up on March 31, but that really didn't raise my cockles. After all, I can remember times when my Cincinnati Reds would kick things off at the end of March, if that's how the calendar fell. As camp battles waxed and waned and rosters were set, though, I began seeing advertisements for game coverage for this or that team, and they all seemed to be talking about Thursday and Friday. This finally all gelled in my heart and mind last week when I took the time to actually look up Opening Day 2011. And I'll be *!@%^& if the season doesn't start with six games on THURSDAY, March 31. And the Redlegs aren't even the first game. Oh, the indignity!!!

Commissioner Bud Selig has done his level best to strip the game of its traditions in his 137 years in office, and I've ridden his wake without too much indigestion, but this one hits me in the old-man bread basket. Every diehard knows how the baseball season starts: there is a midday parade in Cincinnati on the Monday of the first week in April, and then the Reds lose their first game of the season against San Diego or Montreal (what?). Tuesday is an off day so the other teams can catch up, and then it's ON! It's been that way since God created the Earth in the "big inning." Seriously.

But Selig wants to make sure that playoff teams don't have to wear long underwear in late October or early November. There are, of course, other solutions to this problem. We could shorten the regular season. We could eliminate some playoff rounds. We could use some best-of-five series. We could *gasp* eliminate some off days during the playoffs. We could bring back doubleheaders. We could ask the players to grow some, and then grin and bear the cold. But Opening Day ... I just can't stand it!

I know that Selig is the greatest, bestest, sexiest sports boss that ever did grace the face of our planet, and I'm sure that he helped Al Gore in conceiving the Internet, but I've had enough of him. He's done enough "good," and it's time to let someone else try his hand at this. Selig must be bored anyway, having mastered this gig decades ago. Stop fiddling, Bud.

Grouchy old man ... out!